Oklahoma becomes the third state to move against a group Washington has only listed abroad
Gov. Kevin Stitt has ordered an investigation of Oklahoma chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR, with designation to follow. Every federal listing so far has been of a foreign branch.
Stitt signed the order on Wednesday 12 August, directing that Oklahoma chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations be investigated as potential threats in the state, with possible terrorist designation to follow. The account comes from the Tulsa Flyer, a local non-profit outlet, in a report dated 13 August; it is the only account of the order this desk has located, and the text of the order itself remains unread here. The Flyer situated the move as following Trump’s November executive order and the earlier Florida and Texas actions, noting that the states are acting “even though such authority lies with the federal government.” That sentence, not the designation, is the file. Whether the order creates a designation mechanism or only an inquiry is unverified.
The federal architecture it invokes points outward. Executive Order 14362, signed 24 November 2025 and printed at Federal Register Vol. 90, No. 227, p. 55033, designated nothing itself: it instructed State and Treasury to assess chapters in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. On 13 January 2026 Treasury listed the Egyptian and Jordanian branches as Specially Designated Global Terrorists and State listed the Lebanese branch as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and SDGT; State added the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood on 9 March. Four chapters, all overseas. The congressional route — S.2293 and H.R.3883 in the 119th Congress — remains pending. The domestic action is entirely at state level: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Brotherhood and CAIR on 5 February, following a 23 December 2025 action, and a civil rights group sued Florida officials over the CAIR designation in a case reported 2 July.
Assessment: The rhetorical move to watch is the slide from four foreign branches to an American chapter of an American advocacy organisation. Nothing in the Treasury or State releases reaches CAIR, and no federal listing of a US entity exists; the states are filling a gap by assertion. Paxton’s newsroom is a party statement, not a finding, and the Oklahoma order is single-sourced to one local outlet. The genuinely consequential event has not happened yet: the first court ruling on whether a governor may designate at all. Until then this is three executive signatures in search of a jurisdiction.